Having seen the result of design-by-committee (i.e. design by politics instead of designing to fit a functional need), I can say that it doesn't work.

The outcome is almost always better when the protocol has actually been implemented, the kinks worked out, and then you ask others to use it....You know, useful is a necessary component of reusable...But, if you're interested in FUD and a lack of progress instead of something which actually works, by all means do design-by-committee and get nearly useless protocols that implementers ignore.

There were 2 of these 10Kw units required to cruise at 75Mph, so the efficiency, assuming 35% thermal efficiency, is 22mpg.

Given that they're small and easy to maintain, perhaps that doesn't matter if they're only backups, or if this is just a first-iteration technology that may get substantially better.

The big concern imho, is vibration. Unlike a crankshaft-based engine/motor, there is no physical coupling of the pistons if you deploy two of these in a horizontal configuration (as TFA suggests would counter vibration).The lack of coupling means that the pistons are not mechanically synchronized, which means they don't create forces which act against each other.

I'd have to imagine that one could approximate the physical coupling by varying the timing and mixture, but.. I have no idea how actually effective that'd be.

Price controls don't do anything to increase the amount of available housing. It just means that people cannot find housing at all, and that the buildings aren't updated.Eliminating Prop 13, and making the market more liquid and reasonable would help a bit..

No, they are NOT investors.If they were investors,they'd be in trouble with the FTC, which hasn't yet setup regulations allowing such.

People who use Kickstarter are pre-purchasing whatever it is they're being sold. That can act as income for a company, and thus a funding source, but that does not make people who purchase things via Kickstarter investors.

One of these days, we will be able to invest in this manner, but not yet.

Kickstarter doesn't do investing. It is a pre-purchase...I challenge you to find the word "invest" in the below (hint, it isn't there, nor is it *anywhere* on the Kickstarter page)

From Kickstarter:

Pledge $35 or more

22997 backers

You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movie’s theatrical debut, plus the T-shirt, plus the pdf of the shooting script. Naturally, you will also receive regular updates and behind-the-scenes scoop throughout the fundraising and movie making process. Available to US, Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, and Select EU countries (Now including Norway and Switzerland! See Project Description for full list)

The incentive to create is in the money you make from having written and either sold the service that you're selling, or selling the software itself, or sometimes just from the good feeling you get from having made something that works. The latter item is what inspires most really good folks, honestly.

Patents are horrendously ineffective at their intended purpose of incenting innovation in a world where non-practicing entities (read patent trolls) have a vast number of patents and exist with the *sole purpose* being to get money from those patents, and NOT to actually use them. Often the patent is granted (with the application having been secret) years after others have independently gone and done the thing themselves, thinking it was no big deal, probably because *it was no big deal*!Even worse, many patent holders wait to sue until the idea (or company implementing such) is successful, maximizing the damage.

Worse, most of the patents these days (and there has been an explosion of patents... why orders of magnitude more patents when we're arguably no smarter than we were 10 or 30 years ago??) are fricking obvious.

And of course there is the fun bit that NO COMPANY CAN DO A PATENT SEARCH BECAUSE THEN IT WILLFULLY INFRINGES AND MUST PAY TRIPLE DAMAGES. So, noone looks at patents who actually might use them.

Patents, especially in the realm of software, do more harm than good today.Strike that. They're almost purely harmful.